


A Mark of Change

by CrashDevil (cjdevlin19)



Series: Crash Into Me [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fondling, Kissing, Mark of Cain, Mutual Pining, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 20:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19775986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjdevlin19/pseuds/CrashDevil
Summary: Dean’s not a demon anymore, but he’s still struggling with the effects of the Mark and the guilt he feels over what he said to Crash isn’t helping. When she calls him in tears, his only thought is fixing the problem.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“I’m sorry to call so late, I just didn’t know who else to call.”“It’s only 11:30. That’s like noon to a hunter. What’s wrong, Crash?”“He’s gone. He left me again and I told him he can’t come back if he walks out and he said he doesn’t love me anymore anyway and I don’t know what to do!”Dean’s reaction to her tears was immediate. “I’m gonna kill ‘im.”“No! I-I just… I just don’t know what to do and I… I don’t know how to be single and I don’t know how to take care of Aria by myself and I’m so fucking broken I can’t-”“Call Amanda, get her over there with you so you’re not alone. I’ll be there tomorrow.” Dean stood, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.“D-dean, I didn’t me-mean-”“Crash, I will be there tomorrow. I’ll take care of it. Call Amanda.” Dean hung up at that and walked toward Sam’s room. Sam’s door was open, he was sitting on his bed with his laptop resting on his thighs. “Hey, I gotta step out for a couple days.”





	A Mark of Change

**Story Warnings** : pining, angst, self-esteem issues, talk of divorce, the Mark of Cain (is its own warning, yes), some kissing and fondling, but no smuts

* * *

If there was one thing Dean did as a demon that he regretted more than trying to kill Sam, it’s what he said to Crash. She said she understood and it didn’t hurt anymore but he could tell that wasn’t true. She was talking to him even less than she was before he died and he had a bad feeling that she was hurting herself. But what was he gonna do about it? What could he do to make things better when he was part of the reason she was feeling so low?

He texted her everyday, for one. Little things to show he was thinking of her. A ‘good morning’ or a ‘Sam thinks this hunt is a werewolf’. He tried calling but she usually didn’t have the time to talk for more than a few minutes. He could tell she was sinking further into her depression as he sunk further into the darkness of the Mark of Cain.

He did what he could to help her through but there was only so much he could do from the other side of the phone, especially while dealing with his own crap.

He was trying to learn to live with the Mark but it wasn’t working. He was losing his grip and he told Sam to stop looking for an out but Dean knew that wasn’t happening.

When Dean’s phone went off and a picture of Cassie smiled up at him from the map table he was momentarily happy that _she_ was calling _him_ , but when he picked up that feeling disappeared.

“I’m sorry to call so late,” she whined. “I just didn’t know who else to call.”

“It’s only 11:30. That’s like noon to a hunter. What’s wrong, Crash?”

“He’s gone. He left me again and I told him he can’t come back if he walks out and he said he doesn’t love me anymore anyway and I don’t know what to do!” It came out as one long high-pitched sob of information that quickly devolved into crying on the other end of the phone.

Dean’s reaction to her tears was immediate. “I’m gonna kill ‘im.”

“No! I-I just… I just don’t know what to do and I… I don’t know how to be single and I don’t know how to take care of Aria by myself and I’m so fucking broken I can’t-”

“Call Amanda, get her over there with you so you’re not alone. I’ll be there tomorrow.” Dean stood, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair.

“D-dean, I didn’t me-mean-”

“Crash, I will be there tomorrow. I’ll take care of it. Call Amanda.” Dean hung up at that and walked toward Sam’s room. Sam’s door was open, he was sitting on his bed with his laptop resting on his thighs. “Hey, I gotta step out for a couple days.”

Sam’s eyes went wide. “What? Why? Where are you going?”

“Florida. Crash needs my help on somethin’. Not an ‘us’ kinda thing. She just needs me.”

“Dean, with the way that the Mark-”

“I’m fine! The Mark is fine. I’m just gonna take a trip to the Sunshine state and I’ll be back by Saturday, okay? You can come track me down if I’m not. I’ll even leave my damn GPS on.” Sam sighed and nodded. Dean waved a hand as he walked away to his room to grab his Colt .45.

It wasn’t until Dean was passing into Walton County that he realized he didn’t know a damn thing about Mike, not anything he could use to track the man down, anyway. So, he went to the apartment, pulling in beside Crash’s motorcycle and tucking his gun into his waistband before heading up the stairs.

When she opened the door, Dean’s heart fell. She looked terrible. He hadn’t seen her since he was a demon and she was obviously having trouble before Mike left her. Her long blond hair had the darker roots showing, but they were much longer than he’d ever seen them. She stopped dyeing it.

She looked up at him with red, puffy eyes. “I didn’t think you were really gonna-” Her voice was cracking.

“I told you I’d be here… and I’m gonna kill him. Where is he?”

“You can’t!”

Rage flashed through him at the protective reaction she had. “Why the hell not? You’re not letting him come back this time, right, so what’s it matter if I put a bullet in his face?”

“Aria needs a father, Dean! She’s four years old! She needs two parents who love her. Please.”

Dean licked his lips and sighed. He hadn’t thought about how it might affect the kid if he murdered her father. “Where _is_ Aria?”

Cassie sniffled and flopped down on the ugly brown loveseat that replaced the cheap metal futon she had the first time Dean stepped foot in the apartment. “Amanda took her for a sleepover at her place. I’m supposed to be doing something nice for me, healing myself or something. I just wanna curl in a ball and die.”

He took a deep breath and ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “All right, get up.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if you’re not gonna let me aerate your husband, I need a burrito.”

“Oh… kay?” she responded, confused.

“While I’m gone, you’re gonna take a nice hot shower and then you’re gonna put on your comfiest pajamas. Doesn’t matter if you think they’re ugly, I want you cleaned up and snug as a bug by the time I get back. Get me?” She nodded and stood. “Chicken or steak?”

“Chicken.”

“Got it. I’ll be back soon.” Dean patted her shoulder and walked out, popping the trunk to put his pistol away before Googling the closest Mexican restaurant. He stopped at the convenience store down the street to pick up a case of beer before heading back.

The door was unlocked so he walked right in. Cassie was sitting on the loveseat, hair damp but combed, eyes a little less red. She was wrapped in an ugly green robe and he could see her legs were covered by Cookie Monster pajama pants. He couldn’t help but smile. “What, no Big Bird?” he teased, setting the bag of food on the table and taking the beer to the fridge.

“I’m a fat girl, Dean. If you think my favorite Sesame Street Muppet was anybody other than Cookie Monster, you’d be right, but you just can’t find Snuffleupagus merch in stores.”

He smiled as he walked back in and handed her a beer, which she immediately put to her lips and took a long drink of. “Hey, slow down. Got an entire case of beer in there, okay? And we got all night, Crash.” Her eyes downcast at the name and he realized she probably couldn’t hear it without thinking about what he said when he was a demon. “You got any good movies, Cassie?” he asked, digging into the bag past the layer of tortilla chips to the burritos.

“Depends what you wanna watch. I’ve got a bunch of comic book movies, some horror flicks… I’ve got all the _Die Hards_ …” She shrugged. “ _Tombstone_?”

Dean straightened, turning to her fully. “Are you really asking if I wanna watch Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer doing the shootout at the O.K. Corral? Where’s your DVDs?”

“Bedroom. My stuff’s on the left.” He handed her the burrito with ‘CH’ written on the wrapper and went to the bedroom. The bedroom was split by the king sized bed, the right side full of video game merch and drawings, and obsessively clean. The left side of the room was pentacles and moons, clothes on the floor, a well-placed Green Day poster and what seemed like a thousand spiral notebooks full of inked words in her neat cursive handwriting.

Dean grabbed the case for _Tombstone_ and went back into the living room. “Where’s your DVD player?”

“PS3. Here, just let me do it.” She stood and took the case from his hand, bending in front of the pressboard entertainment center and grabbing a Playstation controller from the shelf. Dean shrugged his jacket off and tossed it on the recliner in the corner by the window. He watched as she set the movie up, munching on chips and tilting his head to get a better view of her ass under that robe. She sat back down as the the movie started, tucking her feet under her and picking up the burrito.

They ate in silence until Dean finished his burrito and then he turned to watch her nibble at hers. “You know you’re gonna get through this, right?” She hummed in mock agreement and set the burrito back on its wrapper on the table. “I’m serious.”

“Yeah. I just get to be alone and miserable for the rest of my life.”

“Can you honestly say you were happy with him _here_? Cause I’ve known you for years and the only time I ever saw you really smile was when he wasn’t around, when you weren’t thinking about him or talking about him.” He licked his lips and leaned forward to catch her eyes. “And you’re not gonna be alone.”

She shook her head. “You don’t get it.”

“No, I don’t. Explain it to me,” he said, softly, scooting closer to her.

“I haven’t been single since the year after high school. I don’t know how to date… and dating when you’ve got a four year old daughter? There’s bad men in the world, human monsters who might prey on my insecurities to get to Aria. Mike was bad enough, but at least I know he’s not a perv.” She sighed, heavily, before taking a drink of her beer. “I’m not going to be able to trust some guy from Tinder or Plenty Of Fish. I’m just… not. So, yeah. I’m gonna be lonely at least until Aria goes to college and I’m gonna be miserable about it because having a shitty someone is better than sleeping alone.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”

She shrugged and focused her eyes on the movie. “I knew he was going to leave me again, eventually. I knew he was my only real shot at… it doesn’t matter. It’s over. I’m done. ‘Bout to be twenty-six and I’m… done.”

“No, you aren’t. You’ve got the rest of your life to find someone.”

“What Apocalypse are we working on this year, Dean? Who’s to say how long the rest of my life is gonna be, huh?”

“So, isn’t that a reason to seize the day or whatever?”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

Dean reached over and grabbed her beer, setting it on the table. He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her into his arms. “You’re gonna make it through this, kid.” She resisted the embrace for a moment, her body stiff in his arms, but she eventually melted into it. He ran his hand over her hair and shushed her as she started to cry into his brown flannel. “Everything’s gonna be okay, Crash. I promise.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” she mumbled into his chest.

Dean leaned back, caressing her cheek with his thumb and coaxing her to look into his eyes. “Hey, everything’s gonna be fine,” he whispered. She nodded, just slightly, her green eyes locked on his. His eyes dropped to her mouth, focusing on the cupid’s bow of her top lip. He bent down, pressing his lips to hers, moving his hands to cup the back of her head and pull her gently closer to him. She grasped at his biceps, stretching up to press herself closer to him.

“Whoa,” she breathed out as he broke the kiss, barely a word, just a woosh of air.

“Yeah,” he agreed before going in for another, this time prodding at her bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. She whined slightly when she dropped her jaw and her tongue met his, pressing tentatively against the warm muscle. He pulled open the tie on her robe, exposing her thin white camisole, and tugged the the green fabric down her arms as he kissed the breath out of her.

“Dean.” She grabbed his hand when he went to pull the collar of her shirt down. “What are you doing?”

“What I should’ve done in Vegas.” He pushed her back gently and ran his lips over the skin of her neck. Her whole body shivered at the attention. “Or literally any point over the last two and a half years. Baby, I have been wanting to taste you since I met you.”

“But I’m-” she squeaked.

“Gorgeous. Badass. Amazing.” He punctuated each word with a kiss down her collarbone. “Perfect.”

She responded instantly to the praise, pushing herself closer to him and running her hands through his short hair as he licked into her mouth. Dean loved the way she gave little whining mewls as he groped at her hips, pulling her into his lap and letting her run her hands under his shirt to feel his skin under her fingertips. He loved how she looked at him like she thought she was dreaming as he grabbed the sleeve of his flannel and tugged it off.

But her eyes went wide with shock and fear before he could pull off his black t-shirt. “What is that?” she whispered.

It took Dean a moment to realize what she was staring at on his right forearm and that brought a moment of shock for _him_. For the first time in a year, he’d forgotten about it. He’d been so lost in her, in _her_ effect on him, that he was able to forget about the Mark for the first time since he met Cain.

“Shoulda kept the shirt on,” he muttered, before clearing his throat. He’d avoided telling her about the Mark, skirting around the information to keep her in the dark about it. “That is… the Mark of Cain.”

“The Mark of Cain,” she repeated, green eyes not leaving his forearm.

“Yeah, Cain was-”

“I know who Cain was, D. I did do six years of Sunday School indoctrination.” She leaned forward, reaching out to hover her hand over the red skin like she’d done with the pendulums in the magic shop the day he met her. “This is how you became a demon.”

It wasn’t a question but he answered it like it was. “Yeah.”

“It feels like darkness.” She looked up. The shock was gone, the fear diminished, but now there was worry in her eyes. “You haven’t always had this.”

“Just a year,” he whispered. “There was this demon bitch, Abaddon. She could only be put down by the First Blade, the one Cain used to kill Abel.”

“The one you wanted to slit my throat with?”

“Yeah, uh, but you can’t use Cain’s blade without Cain’s Mark so… Crowley took me to meet Cain. Cain put the Mark on me and I’ve been trying not to lose my damn mind since then.”

“Cain didn’t warn you of the side effects?”

“He tried. I didn’t wanna hear it.”

“Well, that wasn’t very smart, was it?” she said, smiling softly.

“Title of my biography, right there.”

She chuckled. “Long as it’s not the title of your sex tape, I think you’re okay.” She slid off of his lap and handed him his flannel from the floor. “I’m gonna grab another beer. Want one?”

Dean smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Sounds great.” He pulled the flannel back on, covering the Mark. “So, you don’t want me now that you know I’m marked?” he asked as she walked back in and handed him the beer.

“Of course I want you, Dean, but… that thing worries me… and even though I’m not going to let him come back, I’m-”

“Still married. Right. Not ideal circumstances.”

“Not for a first time,” she said softly, as she sat on the loveseat and tucked her feet under her.

He nodded, eyes dropping down to her breasts. He could see her nipples through the thin white fabric. He licked his bottom lip between his teeth and chewed on it for a minute. “If you’re not gonna let me play with those things, you need to put ‘em away,” he said with a smirk.

She looked down at her chest for a second before reaching up to grab them, lifting them and creating perfect cleavage. “These things?”

He swallowed hard, losing a bit of his amusement as lust rushed through his system. “Yeah, _those_ things.”

She chuckled and let them go and Dean watched as they bounced before she reached down to pick up her robe. “The great Dean Winchester getting distracted by a pair of tits.”

He laughed lightly and took a drink of his beer. “Well, in my defense, it’s a really great pair of tits.” She blushed and tied the robe loosely around her before sitting back down to watch the film, which was only about halfway through. Dean reached his left arm out and wrapped it around her, pulling her into his side. She laid her head to rest on his shoulder and smiled as she focused on the screen. By the time Doc Holliday was dead, she’d been softly snoring in his arms for half an hour.

He let her sleep on him for the rest of the movie, the end credits and five minutes of the disc menu restarting before he sighed and shook her shoulder. “Hey, Crash. Baby, you need to wake up. I know I’m comfortable but you really ought to get to bed.” She moaned as her eyes fluttered open. “Come on. Stand up.”

“Do I gotta?”

He smiled softly and wrapped his arm around her waist, helping her to her feet. “Yeah, you gotta.” He walked her to her bedroom and helped her into bed, tucking the comforter in.

“You gonna-” she started to mumble.

“I am more than comfortable on your couch. Gotta be a gentleman here ‘cause if I get in bed with you, baby, it won’t matter if the timing is right or not.”

“Like when you call me that,” she said sleepily, twisting onto her side.

Dean smiled and left the room, curling up on the ugly brown couch and falling asleep. He woke to the smell of bacon and sunlight filtering through the blinds onto his face. “Bacon?” he groaned, rolling off the couch.

“Good morning, D.”

Dean stood, running his hand over his face and stumbling into the kitchen. Cassie was standing at the stove, using tongs to flip a dozen rashers of bacon. “You’re up early.”

“I usually have a small child crawling into bed with me at 6am, so 7am is the latest I can sleep in.” She smiled at him and pointed the tongs at the little Mr. Coffee coffee pot. “Lucky for you, I was able to get bacon and make fresh coffee and dig out the waffle maker.”

“You’re literally the best.”

She blushed and shook her head. “Stop it,” she whispered.

Dean grabbed a mug and poured a cup of coffee, taking a drink. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her cheek. “The best.” He watched as her cheeks and neck turned bright red at his attention and smiled into his coffee mug. “So… I promised Sam I’d be back in Lebanon by tomorrow.”

“I know. Sam was blowing up your phone and you weren’t answering so he called me. He wanted to make sure everything was okay. He’s worried about you.” Dean rolled his eyes and she clicked her tongue. “Don’t do that. It’s sweet.”

“Yeah, it’s sweet until he does something stupid to fix my fuck-up. Then it’s _my_ fault.”

“You can’t expect him to sit idle, dude. You’re his big brother. He loves you.” She bit her lip and focused on the skillet. “He’d do anything to make sure you’re safe and happy.”

“Yeah, I know. S'why he let me come here without him. Knew it’d make me happy to see you.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t tell him you came here to murder my husband.”

“Ex. Get used to callin’ him ‘ex’, baby.” He chuckled as her cheeks went pink again. “You really do like it when I call you ‘baby’.”

“Shut up. Don’t mock me.”

“I’d never mock you,” he said, smirking. “I am a fan of teasing, though.”

She smiled softly and shook her head, maneuvering the bacon in the pan. “How do you want your eggs?”

“Scrambled.” Dean stepped up behind her and leaned his chin on top of her head, watching the bacon cook. “Perfect height.”

“Am I? Perfect height to rest your head on?”

“Among other things. What color is your hair? Your natural hair?” he segued quickly.

“Ugly dark blond.”

“You sure?” he asked, running his fingers down the part in her loose ponytail. “‘Cause it looks kinda red in this light.”

“I’m… _not_ sure. I’ve been dyeing it since middle school. When I was little, it was strawberry blond. So I guess it’d probably be ugly dark strawberry blond now.”

“You don’t even know what color it is. Why do you dye it?”

Cassie shrugged. “When it started to go darker, I hated it. I wanted that pretty strawberry color. Convinced my mom to buy a box of Feria, it was supposed to be the exact color I wanted but it came out orange. Like Sunkist Soda orange. Then the roots started to grow in…that was even uglier, so I kept dyeing it. Tried platinum, dark auburn, chocolate brown, caramel, black right before prom which looked horrible in my portraits but I didn’t like the guy who took me so I guess that’s better that the pictures sucked so I wouldn’t be tempted to put them on the wall, settled on this blond because Mike liked it.” She audibly swallowed. “Think I’m gonna let it grow out…chop some of it off.”

“If that’s what you want to do, do it.”

She shrugged. “I keep it long because my dad told me fat chicks look bad with short hair, makes the face look rounder. And who am I dyeing it for? Might as well just let it be healthy and natural… take it up to shoulder length so it’s not so heavy.”

“Chunky chicks look fine with short hair, don’t let your dad bully you about that. Hey.” He shifted to lean against the counter next to her. “This isn’t about what I said when I was a demon, is it?”

“About my frizzy dyed hair and ghost pale skin? Nah. I’m made of stronger stuff than that, Winchester. This is about me, not you.”

“Good, ‘cause you got _fair_ skin and cute freckles and-”

“You wanna talk about _freckles_?” She turned to smirk up at him. “I never noticed how many you had until you were right up in my face last night.”

He chuckled and licked his lips. “Let you in on a secret. They’re not just on my face.” He quirked his eyebrows suggestively and she blushed madly. “One day we’ll count and see who’s got more, huh?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, dude, you are-”

“So overwhelmingly charming that you’ve forgotten you’re a pagan?” he teased.

“Go sit down.” She demanded, turning away from him to get a handle on herself. “You’re distracting me and I’m gonna burn something.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dean called Sam to check in while Crash finished making breakfast and she put on Family Guy on Hulu to play as background noise while they ate. When the food was gone and the plates were in the sink, she walked him to the car.

“This is probably the last time you’re gonna see me here,” she said, tucking her arms behind her back as he pulled open the driver’s door of his baby. “I’m not gonna be able to afford the rent. My parents already told me they’d let me and Aria move back. Well, Dad said Aria can move back and he supposes that means I get to go too. My dad thinks he’s funny.”

“You gonna send me the address so I can drop in on you?”

She nodded and took a deep breath. “Everything’ll be okay, right? I mean… my heart an-and your Mark, it’ll all work out, right?”

Dean hesitated. If it were just her heart on the plate, he’d have said ‘yes’ immediately. She could get past the pain of her ex leaving her, she was strong enough for that, but the Mark was another story. “Of course,” he finally said, stepping around the door to wrap her in his arms. “Gonna fix this and you’re gonna fix that and then we’ll take a weekend, count each other’s freckles, okay?”

She nodded, her head moving against his chest. “Thank you for coming, Dean. Thank you for being here for me.”

“Always,” he said, pulling away.

“Text me when you get back to Lebanon.”

He nodded and slid in behind the steering wheel. Crash watched from the top landing of the staircase as he pulled out of the parking lot for the last time.


End file.
